


Shattered Souls

by Eilan (Yvi)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-22
Updated: 2011-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-19 16:56:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yvi/pseuds/Eilan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She couldn't remember when exactly it had started again, when he had first knocked on her door and she had foolishly opened it, surprised to see him standing there after all the years that had passed. Yet it seemed like it had been going on forever. He would come to her in the middle of the night, looking like hell, and she couldn't refuse him what he needed most. Human contact. The feeling of two bodies against each other. And then he would walk away and she would be left feeling empty."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Written between GoF and OotP, when we didn't even have a name for the character.

_"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead."  
Bertrand Russell_

Theirs was a strange relationship. He turned to her when he woke yet again from a nightmare and couldn't go back to sleep. When his memories returned to hunt him and his soul screamed for contact.

She couldn't remember when exactly it had started again, when he had first knocked on her door and she had foolishly opened it, surprised to see him standing there after all the years that had passed. Yet it seemed like it had been going on forever.

And there was no end in sight.

He would come to her in the middle of the night, looking like hell, and she couldn't refuse him what he needed most. Human contact. The feeling of two bodies against each other. And then he would walk away and she would be left feeling empty.

He never stayed these nights, he always left before dawn. Before anyone could notice anything. Before she could get the impression it meant anything to him.

For to him it didn't. But to her, it meant everything.

When he left, she cried herself to sleep. The moment the door closed behind him and she knew he had yet again broken her heart, she collapsed and tears streamed down her face.

Still, she opened the door the next time he came to her.

And the cycle continued.

She knew she should stop it, but she couldn't bring herself to do it.

Because she loved him.

For to her he was not just a warm body in the night, their lovemaking not just a way to satisfy human needs, nor to make sure there was a part of his soul left unshattered.

Every night he came to her she thought it could be different, and time after time she was proven wrong. Deep down she knew it would always be like this, because he wasn't capable of loving.

Yet each time this thought resurfaced, she pushed it away, convincing herself some day he would be able to love again.

But he wouldn't. The damage to his soul was irreversible.

Just like the damage he had done to hers.

This sorrow he had caused her, the sorrow that she wanted to bury deep inside of her so it wouldn't affect her, had begun to change her. She had tried to turn away from him, to love again -- to love someone else.

It hadn't worked, of course. She had failed miserably.

Fortunately what happened at night hadn't affected the way she lived when the sun reigned the sky, and she hoped it never would. Even on the days that followed those nights, they acted like there was nothing between them. When they passed each other in the corridors, they'd nod and continue on their way. As if nothing important had happened.

And for him it was true.

Nothing important had happened.

Just one more broken heart, one more shattered soul along the road.

Nothing out of the ordinary in the life of Severus Snape, for he was the personification of a 'shattered soul'.

Aurora Sinistra turned away from the door and silently cried.


	2. Chapter 2

_"Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth  
enters our hearts, that small, familiar pain;  
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth  
in the distant atin chanting of a train."  
'Prayer', by Carol Ann Duffy_

Had she known what would come of it later, she would never have given her soul to him in the first place.

Their relationship had begun innocently enough when she was in her fifth year, he in his sixth.

He was the first person who respected her for what she was. Who talked to her despite the fact that she was the girl from Italy with a strong accent that wouldn't fade, even after years.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

He had found her lying upon the grass of the Quidditch pitch one Sunday evening in her fifth year, watching the stars.

"Hi."

She just nodded and he took that as a sign to sit down next to her.

They sat silently like that for a while, watching as the first stars began to appear in the sky. Students were actually not allowed outside at this time of day, but she had permission. Her teachers knew that she came from a family of astronomers and liked to watch the stars in the evenings, so she had the allowance to stay outside longer than the others. A fact that made some jealous of her, but honestly, she couldn't have cared less.

Her house mates often picked on her because she loved the stars. They said that they were boring, for they never changed. They didn't understand that this was what fascinated her.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked, still not looking at him.

"Watching the stars with you," came the blunt reply.

"I can see that," she retorted. " _Why_ are you here? Shouldn't you be inside?"

She could feel, rather than see him, shrug. It was slowly getting darker and colder and in twenty minutes even she had to be inside if she didn't want to risk losing her privileges.

"I wanted to watch the stars with you. Is that such an alien concept?" His voice sounded harsh, but there was something else in there... something more sincere.

She thought about it for a moment, just to irritate him a bit. She didn't know Severus Snape very well, as he was one year ahead of her. Apart from the occasional chatter she had overheard in the common room, she didn't know what to make of him.

"Actually, yes it is."

"Well, it shouldn't be." She felt that he had shifted and was now facing her. Still, she continued to stare at the stars. Venus was clearly visible at that hour.

"Why?"

"Because not every Slytherin is tactless."

She couldn't help but laugh.

"You should tell my parents that. They'd probably be surprised to hear it." After a pause, she added, "Not that they'd be convinced of course." Her voice sounded bitter and she mentally chided herself for that. She shouldn't talk about her parents in such a way, especially not to someone she barely knew. Her parents were not to blame for the prejudices the wizarding world had against her house. And the prejudices _she_ had against her house. In her first year, she had even asked the Headmaster for permission to be re-sorted. He had refused it, and after one year she had accepted her fate, even becoming proud of it, just to annoy her parents.

"Your parents don't approve of you being a Slytherin?" He sounded as though he couldn't believe it.

"Not really. They read _Hogwarts: A History_ and wanted a proper Ravenclaw." Her curiosity got the better out of her and she just had to ask. "What about you?"

"Slytherin to the bone. Parents, grand-parents and so on."

"Oh. You must be proud to be in Slytherin then."

"Sort of. Just glad I'm not a Gryffindor." She chuckled. Severus, like every Slytherin, despised the Gryffindors. At first Aurora had had difficulties with this rivalry, but now she accepted it.

"I have to admit, I didn't even know where I wanted to be placed. In Italy we don't have something like that - being sorted into houses."

"Might be easier that way. You know, no one would point at you saying you're evil just because you're in a certain house. After all," he lowered his voice a bit, "it's not our blue blood, our pedigree or our O.W.L.`s or N.E.W.T.`s that matter. It's what we do with our life that counts."

"I didn't know you had ever heard of Millard Fuller. " She remembered the quote from what a cousin of her`s had told her, back in her first year, when she thought she would break under the pressure that her family was inflicting on her for being sorted into the harassed house of Slytherin.

"Great. There I wanted to impress a girl with my poetic side, but you know that I was just quoting someone else. Damn."

"Oh, but I am impressed. After all you altered it."

He laughed. It was a genuine laugh, a laugh that she would treasure forever, the distant memory of which she would keep with her, the memory that would help her through all the nights spent in sorrow. A memory of the time when Severus Snape had been a caring, loving boy, able to laugh.

She missed that laugh.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

This night it would be different. She could feel it even before she heard the knock at the door.

Everything would be different from now on. He had been absent the whole day after the boy's tragic death. She knew where he had been, and she had been sure that he would come back changed.

And so he did.

The knock was reluctant and soft. If she hadn't been listening for it she wouldn't have heard it. Of course there was that voice in her head that told her he wouldn't come this night, that he would never come back.

Thankfully, it had been proven wrong.

She opened the door.

He looked even worse than normally. Eyes bloodshot, face bruised, lips split.

 _Crucio,_ she thought instantly. But he was alive. That had to be a good sign.

Wordlessly, he entered the room and sat down in front of the fireplace. Unusual even for him, but as always, she remained silent, just sitting down next to him.

After a while, he stopped starring into the fireplace and looked at her with those deep brown, nearly black eyes. She hated that look, it reminded her of a time long gone. A time when she hadn't been the only one in the relationship who had given more than taken.

Aurora couldn't stand that look any more and began to shift in her seat, nervously looking away.

She wondered whether the students felt like this when he looked at them. If so, she could understand why they were frightened by him.

He stood up and went to the window, gazing outside. At that time of night, you could see nothing but the darkness from it. Still he continued to stare and she went over to him.

After a while, she did something she never would've dared to do before.

She put her arms around him.

Severus didn't back away as she would've expected him to do. Instead, he took her fingers in his. They were cold and had she been asked she would swear she could feel blood on them. Of course she knew it was impossible.

They stood like that for over a minute, until he finally loosened his grip on her hands and turned towards her.

His eyes didn't give away his feelings, yet they seemed to be a deeper shade than normal.

He bent down and kissed her lightly.

"Thank you."

At first she was too astonished to answer. He never said anything when he came to her. It was just something that didn't happen.

"For what?" she asked in a low voice, not looking into his eyes.

"For everything."

Not until he had nearly left the room was she able to reply. Her voice was still low and she never knew whether he had heard her.

"You're welcome."

He silently closed the door behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

_"I hate and I love.  
You ask me how this can be;  
I don't know:  
I only know that I feel it, and it hurts."_

Years later, she could pinpoint the exact moment when the child's game had become something more, something dangerous and painful. But as a child, she hadn't been able to read the signs well enough, hadn't even seen them. It was three months after their first conversation. Their relationship was still fragile: she didn't get along with his friends very much; he judged her friends to be childish. But she felt that he cared about her, and when they had made love for the first time, he had even said he loved her.

And she had believed it, desperately wanted to believe it, for her own sake as much as for his.

Then came the night that changed everything. A black night it was, without a moon, only the stars distinguishing the black sky from the boy's eyes.

They say that the eyes are the mirrors of the soul.

The boy's eyes, blacker than they had ever been before that night; his kisses hungrier -- and yet there was no passion. Her clothes ripped off, her questions stifled by kisses, her body going weak and cooperating...

His voice whispering something, then disappearing.

Aurora, learning what it felt like to be left feeling empty.

But only for the first time.

*

What surprised her the most later was that when she thought about that night, and the following nights, she didn't hate him. That she had, in fact, never hated him. Instead, when she thought of those nights, she couldn't help but feel sad. From time to time she even felt angry, but it was more towards herself than towards him.

She never hated him.

Not even when , a few nights later, he pretended as if nothing had happened and she saw the skull tattooed on his arm. Freezing for a moment, not knowing what do, she decided that there was nothing she _could_ do. Above all else, it made her sad.

She continued to pretend she hadn't noticed it for the next few weeks, then one day quietly ended their relationship. He pretended to understand and just nodded.

Aurora guessed that he had understood her in some way. Still, it had hurt to look at him and see what could have been but wasn't. There were wounds there she had no ability to heal

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Entering the staff room, she immediately felt the urge to exit it again. The only person present was Severus Snape, the one person she didn't want to see.

Normally, by that time of day, she would be in her room in the Astronomy Tower and, as far as she knew, he would be in the dungeons. Of course, like always, coincidence and fate had plotted against her and there she stood, wanting to turn back on her heels, but then noticing he had already spotted her. There was no way back, then, without embarrassing herself.

A short glance and a quick nod was all she received, and she inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. She just had to spend some time there, in the same room, and then she could flee.

The silence that followed could by no means be called comfortable; it was anything but that. Still, she was surprised when he broke it.

"I can't resign, you know that." His voice was low, still full of the strength that she recognised all too well from a past long gone.

"Yes, I know. Why are you telling me this?" She was genuinely surprised. It was a game as old as the world and she was used to it by now: Don't say anything. Wait, and it will pass. Why wasn't he playing along?

"Because you should know." The newspaper in front of his face prevented them from making any eye-contact, but she didn't know if she would've been able to stand it. His eyes, black and deep and bottom-less, stirred up too many memories. Memories of a single night, as black and deep and bottom-less as his eyes.

"Know that you _have_ no other choice or that you _had_ no other choice." It was quickly changing into a game she didn't know the rules for. He was a skilled speaker, a manipulator, a master of choosing his words. She was none of this.

"That _you_ have a choice."

"I never had a choice."

"You always had a choice. It is _your_ life." His voice began to grow impatient, something she wasn't used to getting from him. He had used feelings and glances and movements before that had made her uncomfortable, but never had his voice held anything more than understanding towards her. It was a weapon she wasn't familiar with.

"Is it?"

The newspaper was lowered; his eyes stared right into her soul, or so it seemed to her. They were black. But not dead.

"What do you want, Aurora?"

Her name, spoken by him. It had been a long time.

 _What do you want, Aurora?_

She didn't know.

 _Him._

No.

 _It all to end._

No.

"A normal life."

And she had wanted it for a long time. She wouldn't pass up another chance to get it.

Standing tall, Aurora left the room.

To be continued...


	4. Chapter 4

_"When one door of happiness closes, another opens;  
but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."_

 _-Helen Keller_

 

Her sixth year was hell. Her parents died and left her with virtually nothing. The legal guardianship for her was given to Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, until she finished school. The apartment in Italy where she and her family had lived, and which she had returned to every summer, was sold, at least ensuring that she wouldn't have to live on the street if she left school and couldn't find a job straight away.

The grief was not as bad as she expected it to be, and she hated herself for that. They had been her parents; how could she feel so indifferent about them?

It was in that year that she also discovered that she seemed to attract troubled men like a magnet. There was Barty Crouch Jr., a Slytherin in her year, who eventually went to the Dark Side. There was also Aaron Young, who got expelled after hexing other students.

Still, when the person she later identified as the source of all her problems with relationships finally left the school, she could not feel as relieved as she thought she ought to.

 

***

There wasn't as much to pack as she had imagined there would be. There were the academic materials she had no use for where she was going. She left them for the teacher that would replace her. Who that was, she had no idea; someone else would take care of that, so she didn't care. The students would be taken care of, and that was what was essential.

There were some possessions she was taking, things she hadn't wanted to pack before as she didn't know what to do with them. A golden necklace with a cross that her mother had owned before her; the medal she had gotten as one of the best Astronomers in Great Britain; the ring her fiancé had given to her a few weeks before he had killed himself because of his drug problems. After four years of dating, he had finally found the courage to propose to her and then she had had to discover that without drugs he would have never had the courage to ask her. She was still not sure whether the argument she had had with him afterwards, or the fact that she had told him to leave, had caused him to hang himself. She could only hope it wasn't so.

And there was also a small snake made of silver, a gift that Severus had given her for her birthday when they had been young.

She looked at it carefully. Two green opals formed the eyes that seemed to stare at her, asking her what she wanted. The snake was heavier than it looked. The pattern carved into its back was beautiful, she had to admit. She knew it must have cost a fortune, and yet there she stood, thinking about throwing it away. The snake began to hiss softly. It was charmed to react to the moods of its owner, a spell that Severus himself had cast on the originally lifeless object.

She still held the snake in one hand.

It seemed to Aurora too pretty a thing to have come from a relationship that unsteady and destructive.

Then again, it had just been given to her with the intention to make her more comfortable with what she was, what the Sorting Hat had made her.

It was really quite ridiculous that an enchanted hat could determine her life and how others viewed her. Yet her parents had been disappointed, and boys in the other houses had never even considered speaking with her, much less going out with her.

She still held the snake in one hand.

The rest of her luggage stood in one corner of the room. There was not much she would carry onto the train that would take her to London and then later the plane that would take her to Rome. Her only other living relative, an aunt, had left her a house when she had died, and Aurora was determined to spend the rest of her time there.

He had not come to say goodbye, and she had not expected him to. He had done enough as it was.

A loud knock on the window jerked her out of her thoughts. A raven as black as the night, with a letter tied to its leg, was perched on the sill, wanting to be let in. She immediately recognised the bird as his.

She let the raven in and untied the letter, but didn't open it. She had only a few minutes left before she had to go, and she didn't want to change her mind at the last moment just because of him.

Aurora took her luggage and left the room.

She still held the snake in one hand.

***

Once on the train, with Hogwarts far away, she felt strong enough to open the letter. There was no sign of identification on it and it was not signed. But it didn't need to be. If she hadn't known who had sent it by recognising his messenger bird, she would've known by the two lines that were written inside the parchment in a neat hand:

 _"It's not our blue blood, our pedigree, or our O.W.L.'s or N.E.W.T.'s that matter.  
It's what we do with our life that counts." _


	5. Epilogue

_"There are two kinds of weakness; that which breaks, and that which bends."  
James Russell Lowell_

 

Dear Severus,

You might wonder why I am writing you. To be completely honest, I do not know myself.

The snake you bought for me when we were young is sitting on the desk right in front of me while I write this. It seems to stare at me, trying to prevent me from what I am about to do. It is beautiful, and I still wonder why you bought it for me. It seems too expensive a treasure for one who, like me, never cared for wealth.

The truth is, I don't know what to do at the moment. I feel hollow, like some part of myself is missing since I left Hogwarts. I suppose the fact that I am now living alone is slowly driving me mad.

It's breaking me, Severus.

All my life, I have had someone around me. And as you know, it was not always a good thing.

Which is probably the understatement of the century.

The house is quiet around me. There is only my breathing and the scratching of the quill against the parchment as I write meaningless words to fill this silence.

You probably don't know what I mean or where I am getting to.

By the time this reaches you, there will be no Aurora Sinistra anymore.

There, I wrote it. Wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

To be honest, there hasn't been an Aurora Sinistra for a long time. She died many years ago, and although she tried to live again, she didn't succeed.

Writing about myself as though I'm writing about some random person makes it easier.

You might think I'm crazy for what I am about to do to myself, and maybe you are right. But then again, you are not me. You have not done and experienced all that I have. 

You are strong, but I am so weak.

My boyfriend - it feels childish to use this word when you are an adult, doesn't it? - left me yesterday.

But heartache is not why I am doing this. I have dealt with that feeling before.

All my life I had a purpose. Teaching, caring for someone, hoping against hope that I would make a difference.

But I am insignificant in the greater scheme of things. In times of war, who needs an astronomer? 

I am empty.

Are you to blame for what I am now?

Maybe, but maybe not.

I cannot excuse you of your responsibility in the mess that is my life. Yet I cannot blame you entirely.

We make our own choices.

I always wondered if this is really true. Now I know that it is.

And I made my choice long ago when you stood before my door one night. I could - I should have closed it in your face, but I chose not to.

And now I make one last choice, one that is only mine.

The moment this owl leaves the room there will be no going back. I am a Slytherin, I have a backbone... I just didn't use it much in the past.

We make our own choices.

Farewell.

Yours sincerely,

 _Aurora Sinistra_


End file.
